Do you crave ice cream year round? Because I certainly do, yet somehow I managed to completely fail at making any homemade ice cream this past summer (I made popsicles but that doesn’t count). Hard to accomplish when summer lasts about 9 months here. But redemption comes in the form of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Ice Cream! After all it is going to be 73 today, and I have no Ohio State football to watch since it is our Bye week. Which means I can stress out a little less today and sit back with a bowl of glory. This super creamy ice cream has a a peanut butter base and then mini Reese’s cups are mixed in. It’s a total imbalanced ratio of peanut butter to chocolate, and that’s exactly how I like it! However, if you are like more people are prefer a bit more chocolate, just pour on some fudge topping.

In lab-nerd related news, a yeast gene that once took me two years to delete (a process that normally takes about a month and therefore made me miserable) finally decided to play nice the other day and produce not just one positive colony, but 7… SEVEN! I know practically no one will understand how unbelievable this was to my eyes, but I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had seen in a long time. You see, after finally getting the first one a couple years back I have had the luxury of deleting the same gene out of several different strains of yeast. Every single time it has been a serious struggle to get more than one, and you really need at least two to show reproducibility with your results later on when doing experiments with the little buggers. And now I have seven. I knew that gene and I would be friends one day, but I thought I was going to have to wait for graduation haha.

REESE’S PEANUT BUTTER CUP ICE CREAM

In a medium mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to combine peanut butter and sugar until smooth. Add milk and mix on low until sugar is dissolved – a full two minutes. Mix in heavy cream, salt and vanilla and beat until well combined and smooth. Cover and refrigerate overnight while your ice cream maker bowl freezes (I use the KitchenAid Stand Mixer attachment).

Turn on your ice cream machine, pour the ice cream base into the freezer bowl, and let mix until thickened, about 25 to 30 minutes. A couple of minutes before you’re ready stop the mixing, add in the chopped peanut butter cups. The ice cream will be a soft-serve consistency. You can eat it right away, or freeze to eat later. If you freeze it for later, it will be more ice-cream-scoopable. Let it sit out for a few minutes before you try to scoop it.

How did I miss this post Erin? I think you dedicated this ice cream to me, your fellow pb/chocolate lover! were twins. I’ve never made my own ice cream before, but I need to try it. I eat it year round as well – i’m enjoying pumpkin ice cream lately!!